Someone
by trollalalala
Summary: He was just a someone in a sea of millions of someones who thought they were somebodies. This man made two betrayals and lived to tell the story of one of them. /Written for The Monsterriffic Competition for the forum "Percy Jackson and the Land of Writing"


_A/N: Written for the first competition I've ever entered, The Monsterriffic Competition for the forum "Percy Jackson and the Land of Writing."_

_It's a relatively new forum that hosts competitions and issues challenges. I really recommend checking it out!_

_1) Cyclops - They're the one-eyes giants fathered by Poseidon and form the armies of Poseidon after defeating Typhon. Write about someone changing loyalties after a major battle. Alternatively, write about Tyson. Deadline: 30th November, 2013_

* * *

You're just a someone in a sea of millions of somebodies. Some part of you wants to be important, like you had expected to be when they told that you were the child of a diety (a god! You're practically Jesus!), and that you were half-gold-half-red like a sparkling Gryffindor (a.k.a the heroes). Like, you're half immortal. Why wouldn't you be a hero?

They tell you that you're supposed to be the good guys of the comic strip while the certain _they_ are the villains. Always pronouns and titles, and never "Hey, we're going to fight our grandfather today and hope he doesn't kill us. _Bon voyage._"

And suddenly, that Titan isn't your blood and flesh. He's not even a he. He's an It. A Titan. A bad guy that needs destroying.

So you fight and feel good about it for a while. You're saving the world like a superman on an earth without kryptonite. And then when, suddenly, you see the carnage, the bodies strewn about like straw, it's not so glorious anymore.

So you fight like a soldier (trying so, so hard to be numb to everything), even though you're still only a child and all you want to do is go back to the red-lunchbox days and the times when the blues were just colors and not felt and experienced. You don't want to understand the cruelties of loss and pain and bloodshed. You don't want to see the trails of e-m-p-t-y left behind in tracks of red-red-red-blo-o-d-red tears.

But you do. You understand everything.

Because it's being shoved into your face like a brochure on the streets of busy New York.

This brochure has print in font size 72 and it's bolded, italicized, and underlined (with a command that nobody wants to point out). **_"We want YOU, or we want YOU dead."_**

And the people say to pick one side or the other and to decide to pick the one that seems right (but, you know, our side is always the right one).

Yeah, okay.

Right.

There was a boy just like you.

He marched into a battle. A battle against a snake that just wouldn't die.

He fought. He tried to kill it and grab the gold. The forbidden apple that was glazed over and fired in a kiln so it would come out beautiful enough to attract the hungry for power.

He tried to make his father proud. Make his cabin proud. Make himself proud. Show everybody that he wasn't just a Saturday-night leftover and that he was important.

When he looked at what he had done and, more importantly, what he hadn't done, he was disgusted. He was angry.

Not with himself, not with the predisposed enemy, but with his father.

It's his fault, the boy told himself. It's all his fault, and it's not mine; it's not theirs.

It's _his_.

His fault for coming. His fault for staying. His fault for leaving. His fault for telling. His fault for not stopping her.

His fault for not answering prayers when a child was hunkered in a closet because his mother was having another one of those scary fits. Fits brought upon an innocent mortal woman who liked baking cookies but was scarred by the old grudges of a realm she didn't belong in.

His fault for bringing a child into a grey world where the lines between ancient gold and modern iron are blurred and forgotten.

His fault for forgetting. Forgetting the child, forgetting the mother, forgetting one of the many families he had on mortal earth. Forgetting that he was a father.

He forgot.

But this boy wouldn't forget. He wouldn't ever forget. He would remember everything every single time he looked into a mirror and rubbed salt into his wounds.

And that boy decided, right then, right there.

Eventually (an eventually that was too short to be eventual), that boy grew up to be a man.

He was just a someone in a sea of millions of someones who thought they were somebodies. Some miniscule part of him wanted to be a hero, like he had expected to be when they told him that he was the child of an Olympian. That part of him regretted switching sides and becoming the willing host of a parasite.

That man had fought his way to the top. Then he had fought his way to the top of Olympus. And then he had fought his way past the parasite, past the monster, past the grudges and the sweat and the tears and the dirt that would never come clean.

And he came to himself.

He had realized something in a moment of flickering grey truth.

The gods weren't good rulers, but this Titan wouldn't be any better.

And he suddenly did something very stupid and brave.

He changed his mind.

He took the reins from the Titan and cut them to shreds of string. And then he cut himself ever so slightly, and it was done.

He was half immortal. Why _wouldn't_ he be a hero?

* * *

**Thank you for reading. **


End file.
